Fall weather is finally kicking in with a couple of cold and rainy days . Although all the leaves have yet to change and drop, the forest is starting to show signs of Autumn with some of the maples already bear. I got a chance to visit the site and sit through a quick thunder storm, giving me the opportunity to check where the roof sheds water, and verify any remaining draining issues from the most recent grade change. Progress was abound outside with the near completion of the flooring in the gazebo, further progress on the front and back steps, and the gravel base for the driveway. The inside also saw significant progress with the completion of paint on the first floor, hardware planning, and more prep for the finished electrical install.
The first 15 feet of the driveway is still the base sand, but past that, all the way up to the house has a new, thick layer of crushed gravel for the asphalt base. One man with a dozer and a roller spread and compacted the entire driveway with another hauling in truckload after truckload of the gravel. Gone is the low spot in front of the sign, so we no longer have to worry about deep puddles after the rain. We got to see a little bit of the work in action during our hardware planning visit during the week.
The gravel contains a mix of fine and large aggregate. The pieces of large aggregate are not smooth, which I've read is what you're looking for. The harder edges will create a stronger base since they're less likely to slide off each other. The roller compacts the base enough to drive on without any sinking.
A little farther up the driveway at the first bend. We had some concerns about how low the driveway dipped down on the second curve, but it looks like a significant amount of base was added. A few inches of asphalt will be added to the top of this, so we should be pretty high when it's completed. We'll have to address how to taper the grade on the sides to combat erosion and premature wear. You have to make sure to support the edges or you'll get crumbling should a vehicle drive too close to the shoulder.
Approaching the house. They moved the dumpster to the unfinished overflow parking area so the entire driveway could be paved. It's getting pretty full anyways, so they'll probably need to haul it away soon. There's not much construction work left in the house, so I'm not sure if they'll need to get another large dumpster or if a smaller one will suffice.
There are three large white pipes spaced up the driveway that are currently sitting on the sides. These should be placed perpendicularly under the driveway to act as a conduit, should we need to pass wires from one side to the other. I'm not sure why they're not in the ground already, or if they'll be placed before the asphalt is poured. The Sound Vision was supposed to coordinate with Great Oaks about requirements for the gate intercom, but I didn't see any new wires. It's a pretty long distance for wireless so I don't think that's an option.
Gravel was placed for the paved overflow parking spot but it looks a little small. It's not meant to take up the whole space, but you should be able to fit two cars, diagonally from the driveway. Maybe a work truck was in the way when they were laying the stone, and the footprint will be increased in the next week.
Here's what the driveway looks like up at the house. The pallets of blue stone need to be moved so the gravel can be placed and compacted here. There is a bed to the left of the front steps, but the driveway should go all the way to the steps down. That extra space is required to give us enough room to turn around our cars.
Here are the machines doing all the work on the driveway. I didn't get much chance to talk to the operator, but he's an older guy and manned both machines. The dozer quickly spread the gravel and the roller compresses it. I think the roller has some vibration functions or something to compact the gravel. If it's just weight, then it does a great job since I had no issues with sinking driving my nearly 2 ton car up the driveway.
A small gap was left next to the wall to define the driveway. There will be a safety curb in the asphalt so cars don't easily drive off the wall. There will also be a planting bed, grass near the boulder wall, and safety fence on top of the wall. I'll miss being able to walk all the way up to the edge of the wall but the railing is a necessity and the bushes will hide the railing.
The dimensions on the front steps were fixed and I'm told that the original subcontractors on the job were removed from service. Maybe too many mistakes were being made, costing Great Oaks money. It looks like they cut away the excess concrete in front and poured a bit more on the back to bring the lower landing to within specs. The upper landing was demolished and shifted back to the correct dimensions. Mike said they had enough footing below to stack the new landing riser on, so I'm not worried about structural integrity. Cobble stone faces the risers and blue stone will cap the treads when completed. If the weather holds out, I imagine they'll be able to finish this week.
These pallets of blue stone are what's left of the material for the treads. It's the same that's used on the lower landing and the back steps, but slightly more homogeneous in color compared to the gazebo stone. They have to be moved before the driveway installer can complete his gravel compacting, but since the first asphalt base is scheduled for the 17th, They'll probably move it first thing on Monday.
Here's a few of the steps from the porch. You can see the first few feet of the front porch is susceptible to rain but that's about it. The rain was being blown around pretty hard so I'm happy with how little got on the deck. The front door should be well protected from the elements. The actual steps have been installed all the way up to the front porch with example blue stones placed where applicable. I believe the pedestals that flank the steps will be capped in the same material.
Hardwood door and bevel sent their installers one more time to fix the various issues we had with the exterior doors. They sent a furniture repair person to address the unsightly plugs in the casement of the front door and we're satisfied with the results. They're now flush with the casing and you might not be able to see if unless you were looking for them. The front door closes easily now and all the binding on the door frame is gone. It took a few tries and some heated conversation to get it to this point, but it was well worth the effort. The thing we need to keep reminding ourselves is that this is our house and we're ultimately the client, so if we're not happy with something, we should speak up and not feel like we're imposing on the installers. It's an odd thing to get used to since we're not usually the type of people to cause an inconvenience, but getting into the final stages, appearance is everything so it's worth it to be annoying.
Moving inside, nearly the entire first floor is done with painting. There were one or two places that still required paint, but for the most part everything is done on the first floor. Here's the gray that went into the dining room walls. It's Sherwin Williams "
Mindful Gray" () in a flat finish. It's has a little more earth tone in it compared to the other grays in the house, and I think it will pick up on the brown of the floor more. We were also considering this for the exterior, but decided to go with the more green "Earl Gray". The detail on the ceiling is painted in a satin and the rest is in flat, so even though they're the same "Snowbound White" color, they look different from the sheen. I love the effect and can't wait to get our final dining room table and lights in here.
I was wondering what these things were last week and speculated that they were used as a baseline for leveling the floors. Turns out they're for monitoring the moisture content of the house and floor for the wood floor installation. There's normally a concern with the amount of moisture in the air and, in our case, the floor since in a newer house, the concrete would be curing and releasing some moisture. The paint drying process also adds humidity to the air and there needs to be a certain level of humidity reached before the floors can be brought to the house for final location acclimation. Once it's decided that the ambient humidity is good, they'll bring in the wood floors and let them sit for a few days to reach parity with the house. This ensures the installation will be tight and not experience expansion or contraction due to a difference between the moisture content in the wood and air. I thought this effect would be lessened with engineered floors, but it's still enough of a consideration to go through this procedure.
I think the only room that received final paint on the second floor is the rotunda, since it share the same color as the rotunda below as well as the greatroom, foyer, and kitchen. The masking remains on the tin ceiling, but can probably be removed and the stain still needs to be applied to the railing and stairs, but I'm not sure if that will happen before or after the wood floor is installed. The section above the stairs still needs to be painted, but that will probably be finished this week. The paint is peculiar because it looks much darker when it's next to the primed wall, but once it's all painted, appears lighter. I was a little worried about the color at first, but now that I see whole wall sections painted, it looks great.
The entire greatroom painting is completed and all the masking is removed. The back wall paneling got the "Snowbound white" in satin, along with the coffer beams and trim throughout the house. The ceiling is a "
Nebulous white" in flat and the walls are "
Passive Gray" in flat. The nebulous is the second grayest in its series and the Passive is the whitest gray, so they're very close in color. The nebulous coffers make the snowbound beams pop just a little bit without being too in your face, but it keeps the ceiling lighter than the walls, offering a more airy feeling. Looking back a half year, I would have never imagined the final product to look this spectacular.
Here's another shot of the greatroom ceiling. The scaffolding will remain in the house until the lights are installed this week. We're getting LED retrofits in all the recessed lights made by TCP. It's part of their designer elite series with a 3000k CRI, which is a slightly yellow/white light. Not as yellow as a standard incandescent bulb, but not as white as a fluorescent tube. We'll see if the 6 cans we have up there are enough to light the room.
Most of the masking remains in place on the fireplace column but should be able to be removed soon. The TV back plate still needs to be painted, but that will probably be a brush job. A bank draw was made to pay the Sound Vision for the initial equipment purchase so we should start to see some of the sound systems rolling in. Lighting circuits will be installed by the electricians, under the guidance of a Sound Vision installer but primary equipment installation isn't scheduled to start until later this month.
Distinctive designs installed a small piece of metal on both sides of the fireplace up under the overhang. We considered using stone on the underside, but it didn't work out well, so we opted for a piece of powder coated metal. It's not something you would normally see unless you're sitting on the ground, but it's important to have since it's only cement board underneath. Powder coating should be able to withstand the heat of the fireplace, better than paint but I'll have to monitor this.
I can't remember if this is new or not, but there are electrical plugs in many places on the first floor. I don't think they're hooked up to main power yet and they might have already been installed since before paint, but masked off, so I missed the install. These are interesting because they have an internal safety feature that prevents accidental electrocution. If you look closely, you'll see that the plugs are actually blocked by a piece of plastic. It slides out of the way when two prongs are inserted or something, but prevents a single object from entering the receptacle. We should see more of these being installed around the house this week now that the final electrical phase is moving in.
They finished painting the basement stairwell in the same Passive white color as the rotunda. It's a nice finishing touch to an otherwise unfinished space. These lighting sconces that will be installed in the stairwell are unfortunately back ordered until December since they're so new, so we'll have to wait until then to get them installed.
The guest room on the first floor has its final paint of Sherwin Williams "
City Loft" in flat. This and the adjoining bathroom are the only rooms getting this color in the entire house. The City Loft is a much lighter gray than the rotunda and kitchen and when combined with the three windows in this room, keep the space feeling clean and light.
The City Loft works especially well in the guest bathroom, that hints at a Victorian design with the patterned tile floor and wainscoting subway tile. It's enough color to differentiate from the white tile and wood trim, but not strong enough to darken the room. Keeping the first floor rooms light is important since we have a large porch overhang on every first floor window. Lighter paint colors and cabinets help achieve that.
Our meeting mid-week with Margaret and Mike bore fruit in the form of a count and plan to implement all cabinet hardware throughout the house as well as towel racks, toilet paper rolls, and accessory hooks in necessary rooms. We met the previous week at our local hardware distributor, and picked out the styles we wanted in each room so this meeting was to record a count and finalize the sizes. The kitchen was by far the most complicated room so we marked each door with the appropriate size hardware so there would be no question what goes where. Another finish marked off the list!
The mudroom is finally getting its unveiling now that the room is painted in its "
Repose Gray". For some reason, the gray stained locker has a green tinge in this picture so maybe I should perform a white balance in every room before I take pictures. It also might be form the exterior lighting of the mudroom door, which is also unmasked. The mudroom bathroom, which is much too dark to photograph without artificial lights, is the same color as the tile also carries directly in. All we need are finished electrical and door knobs and this room is complete.
Although most of the second floor still needs to be painted, they did make their way into the spare bedroom, painted in the same Repose Gray as the mudroom and office. The natural lighting in this room is better than the mirrored one below it on the first floor and will be reserved for a future kids room. Floors and finished electrical is all that's needed in this room now.
The adjoining bathroom is a little less traditional than the guest bathroom, and replaces the zero threshold shower with a tub/shower. The hardware in here will be more masculine but the towel hardware will be the same as the other non-master bathrooms. We probably won't have shower doors for move in, and opt for shower curtains to help with child bathing.
Another fix performed by Hardwood Door and Bevel is to the master balcony door hardware. When they last left it, the two door handles weren't aligned to each other and the dummy handle on the right was missing the top screw. I'm not sure what was involved in the correction, but they're not even and the screw is in place. As a note, you can tell the level of installation when the screws are all indexed in the same orientation. Good electricians like to align the flathead plate screws either all horizontal or all vertical and it means something when you pay special attention to the small details. I'll probably index these myself since that detail wasn't done.
The laundry room hasn't been painted yet, but it's prepped for paint, which will be happening this week. The laundry surround will also get painted the same color as the cabinets so it will be nice to see the final product in this room, which was the first room in the house to actually have walls. The electrical lighting control panel should see some changes too this coming week with the installation of the finished lighting. Big changes coming!
Moving back outside, the gazebo and back porch stone is near completion. Almost all the stone has been set although mortar needs to be filled. I think we're looking at one more week until the stone is finished, then the carpenters will have to come back to complete the columns. Hopefully the weather will hold out to get some paint on the pillars. Then we need rails and the back porch will be complete!
The section coming out of the mudroom turned out really well. There was a slight slope in the concrete to shed water, and they lessened it a bit but couldn't completely remove it, which is fine. You don't feel it when walking and it's only visible if you get down low. Since the mudroom door was finally unmasked, I took the opportunity to try out the new porch, walking in and out of the house multiple times. I think we made the right decisions with accessibility to the outside as the house feels very livable.
This area in the gazebo is the last section that needs to be set before mortaring can begin. After the mortar is set, Old Country Stone is done on our house (for now). We might contract them to install our gate pillars at the end of the driveway when the time comes, since they did such a great job on the rest of the house. We'll need to figure out what gates we want before we can spec the pillars, so there's some work to be done before we implement that. OCS should be able to make short work of this section early in the week and hopefully finish with mortaring before the weekend. If the mortar work on the house is any indication, they're pretty quick with the work so I'm hopeful to be looking at a finished gazebo this weekend. Maybe I'll light a celebratory fire in the fireplace.
Progress on the back steps continued with the removal of the erroneously placed blue stone and the installation of the stair structure. They used a solid cinder block for these stairs as opposed to the standard hollow and concrete filled up front. All that's left is the cobble stone facade on the risers and side, the blue stone treads, and all the mortar work. I'm hoping this will be done this week too and we'll be done with our Great Oaks installations for this year.
Here's a close up of the back steps. Some cobble and blue stone was placed to indicate which material goes where although these cobbles will probably have to be replaced with the corner cut cobbles. The treads will be the same kind of bluestone as the landing. which will offer a smooth walking finish. I love that we have access to the backyard that doesn't involve going through the kitchen. Between the kitchen slider and the mudroom door, I can't decide which will be the primary access, but imagine it will be conditional. This will be great for the kids and their friends, when they want to come in to use the bathroom or grab a quick snack.
One more detail that will need to be installed before OCS is done is drilling some weep holes through the gazebo bench. Should any water make its way into the gazebo, it will need to either evaporate or drain. Since the bench occupies almost half of the perimeter, there should be some holes for the water to drain out of. The likely hood of excessive water is low, but I could see an instance when we power wash or something.
The gazebo is really starting to shape up and once the pillars are completed will be an amazing space. There's plenty of room and shelter from the elements, and I'm imagining many cool nights by a fire. Now that the weather is turning cooler, I'm really itching to try out the fireplace. There's plenty of firewood harvested from our own felled trees to last us a long time.
One more shot of the entire gazebo space. We're expecting to have some kind of outdoor dining table towards the back of the gazebo with a few chairs to place around the fireplace. Overflow fireplace seating can be on the benches or from the dining table. I think we sized the gazebo to accommodate an 8 person rectangular table, although it might be outside of the octagonal footprint. Since the porch is eight feet deep, we still shouldn't have issues with traffic bottlenecks.
That's about it for this week. Next week should see some major installations in the form of finished lighting, an asphalt driveway, completed exterior stonework, finished painting, and maybe the delivery of the wood floors. Still don't know what the time table is on the finished plumbing, but considering we'll be waiting until the 27th for our stone counter tops from PMP stone, I don't think it will wrap up until after their installation. With only two more weeks left in the month, I think this build will push into November before we can get our certificate of occupancy. Hopefully the snow will hold off just long enough for us to move in, but you can never rely on Michigan weather.
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